According to local legend no more than four people should be on hand to witness the actual killing portion. Apparently the more people, the longer it takes for the animal to die. I was only able to watch the throw of the axe and the rush of men after it connected. As someone who spends a great deal of time advocating eating less meat, I knew I was into a very intimate encounter to how pork arrives on the plates of many. More than anything, I strangely am very grateful for the experience.
The most difficult part for me was when they hauled the body to the work station. I could see his big brown eyes looking at me and his body was still convulsing with the last bits of his nervous systems claim to life. These things made me remember that thankfully this pig only required one hit to the head. Then it was the efficient removal of the external hair using hot water.
You could see the last remains of the blood mix with the cooling water and the freshly pulled bristles of hair as it fell of the work station. They collected, and remain, to be a reminder of the activities that occurred. Then it was the fascinating breakdown of the pig from four legged animal to organs and eventually into meat. I watched the entire process of hanging the animal from the rancho’s main pillar and the cutting through the animal. I saw every part that you could possibly see. The removing of the heart, liver, lungs, digestive tract, and more. The hardest to watch was the removal of the head. I won’t go into too much details, but hearing the sharp knife grind against the teeth (in order to get the cheek meat for pancetta). Disgusting.
While the more normal parts of meat were being butchered, I couldn’t help but find my gaze drift to the odd parts. The head and the organs. But then equally it was mesmerizing to watch this 80 pound animal be divided up into parts to serve as hams, roasts, loins, and turn into stock. About halfway through the process I realized that the “shock” of watching this all go down had finally subsided and I once again discovered my hunger. I sat and watched them finish off the other half of the pig while I sat and ate watermelon.
I’m sure some of you will marvel at the fact I was able to eat anything, but I think I needed to do something normal. Like sit and eat watermelon amidst the strangeness of watching the entire process unfold. Additionally, I felt like if I were going to hurl, it would be better with a full stomach. At least you’d have something to have come up. However none of these things happened and in a way I felt some relief remembering my commitment to not eating meat.
Throughout this process I cannot say that my opinion on meat consumption has changed. I still believe that overall if people cannot eliminate eating meat entirely, they should at least reduce the amount they do. And in many ways I feel like I have been very fortunate to see the full cycle and cost of eating meat. The amount of work to get the pig raised and fat enough. The process of killing and essentially dismembering the animal into useable parts.
Strangely I feel like the locals here have a much better understanding of eating meat than most North Americans. Here you cannot walk into a store and buy a packaged chicken breast. There are no advertisements telling you how lean turkey is. There is nothing but the act of raising, killing, and preparing the animal for human consumption. There is a beauty to the transparency. And overall I feel people here have a greater understanding of what it takes for animals to be consumed.
I think that people always assume as a vegan that you want to convert the masses to your way of thinking. However, what people fail to realize is that all I want is for people to awaken their own knowledge. Beef is cow. Pork is pig. I think if people had more respect for the food they buy and where it comes from, at the end of the day I could live with that. I could respect that someone understands how the meat ends up on their table and can life with that. I could not life with the notion of killing and that subsequent learning of where my food came from has inspired my current trek.
While the world works in strange and mysterious ways, I think it is moments like this that make me glad I have had the opportunities here that I have. Even though I intentionally tried to avoid working on farms with animals, I think that I can honestly say that it was something I needed to learn. If I ever want to learn how to change how people see food, it needs to start with how I see food.
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